Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9780800113056
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, NTSC
ISBN: 0800113055
Label: Sony Pictures
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Release Date: June 24, 1994
Running Time: 105 minutes
Sales Rank: 2865
Studio: Sony Pictures
Theatrical Release Date: 1934
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com essential video:
Director Frank Capra (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) took home every Oscar in the book (well, okay, all the major ones) for this seminal 1934 comedy starring Clark Gable as a hard-bitten reporter who stays close to a runaway heiress (Claudette Colbert) rather than lose a good story. Funny and sexy, the film is full of memorable scenes often referred to in other films, such as the 'walls of Jericho' (a mere bedcover hung on a line down the middle of a room so opposite-sex roommates can get undressed), and Colbert's famous flash of thigh to stop a speeding car in its tracks. Capra's brisk, urbane brand of wit was a perfect complement to his populist faith in the common man (in this case, Gable's character), and that inspired combination makes this film both a spirited entertainment and an uplifting experience. --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - A delightful comedy that won five Oscars
Times were hard in 1934 and this light hearted piece of nut cake hit the spot. It is one of the very few films that won all five of the big Oscars: Best Pictures, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Screenplay). All films follow certain standard storylines, but the best ones draw you into their story enough that you stop looking at how it fulfills the requirements of its plot. This one combines the duck out of water with a road picture and provides a nice touch of confused romance along the way. Claudette Colbert plays Ellie Andrews, the sheltered, spoiled, and impetuous daughter of a very wealthy and very powerful father who has plans for her life. As the film opens he is upset with her and trying to make sure she cannot follow through on her plans to marry King Westly (Jameson Thomas) because he does not approve of the man or the match. She barely knows her fiancé, but because her father forbids it she wants it all the more and jumps off the yacht to begin her journey to find Westly and marry him.
Clark Gable plays a barely-ever-was newspaper reporter who likes to drink too much and was just fired from his job. But he recognizes Ellie Andrews and decides to travel with her and see what kind of a story he can get from her journey to seek her "true love". Of course they start out antagonizing each other and never really admit their growing affection for each other until it all seems too late. There are many adventures along the way that set up opportunities ... Read More
Rating: - "Capra-Corn" at Its Best
What to say about a movie like this? Claudette Colbert is adorable. Clark Gable is at his alpha-male finest. Frank Capra used his tried and true formula with humor to make one of the best romantic comedies of the 1930's.
A rebellious rich girl, Ellie Andrews (Colbert), runs away from her rich father because of his opposition to her marriage to King Westley, not a monarch but an upper class snob that her father loathes. Who should she run into on a bus while fleeing than none other than a brash just-fired reporter named Peter Warne, played by Gable. Let the war games begin as Colbert and Gable engage in the sophisticated and very funny running banter that makes the movie so appealing.
Her flight via the bus, and other forms of travel, is the vehicle for moving the couple and the plot along as their relationship develops. He is using her for a story, ostensibly. She is using him as her protector, ostensibly. What follows are a number of classic comic scenes which, of course, ineluctably lead to true love.
Colbert's successful skirt-lifting hitchhike has become the stuff of Hollywood legend, shown repeatedly for every conceivable purpose. What is usually missing from that clip is the whole hilarious build up, brilliantly done by Gable as he demonstrates the tried and true ways of thumbing a ride. He does a wonderful job of setting his large male thumb, and ego, up for the big take-down that Colbert's lovely leg produces.
The blanket scenes ... Read More
Rating:  - Classic
It is a very rare thing when a light-hearted comedy, something that is quintessentially the stuff of a `good movie,' breaches into that territory where the term `good film' can also be applied, but Frank Capra's 1934 film It Happened One Night may be an exception. Today, most people know Capra solely for his rediscovered classic It's A Wonderful Life, made a dozen years later, but this film was his first stab at what most critics would label greatness. This is all the more interesting because the 1930s, with their still newly developed sound technology, were still a transition period, of sorts, with the over the top hammy expressionistic acting of the silent films still dominating more than the more subtle naturalism of later film eras.
As a comedy, this is all the more striking, since there was not the manifest symbolism of some of the great silent film comedians, nor was there the social satire of the 1960s madcap comedies, nor those of Woody Allen's intellectualized Golden Era. Yet, Capra's film, aside from its fame as having lifted Columbia Pictures from the bottom of the film studio heap, and being the first film to win the Big Five Oscars in a single year- Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Lead Actor, and Best Lead Actress, is credited with being the first `screwball comedy,' a subgenre of the romantic comedy, that flourished during the Great Depression and World War Two years. The films that this film kicked off all were romantic comedies, but ... Read More
Rating: - Wonderful
This is one of those classics that everyone should see. There was a movie a few years ago that as I watched I saw a lot of the storyline from "It Happened One Night." Needless to say remakes are never as good as the originals. If you are a Gable fan you can't miss this one. It just never gets old.
Rating: - Just keep your eye on that thumb.
Ellie Andrews(Claudette Colbert) is running away(like she is so good at) from her rich father and on the way meets roughed-up newsman Peter Warne(Clark Gable).
Similar to many films at the time, but this one stands the test of time better then most, the witty dialogue is still cunning and smart. Not to mention Claudette and Clark have brilliant chemistry, especially in the scene where they are forced to sleep in the middle of nowhere, both learning the other is not so disagreeable.
Also, watching Peter's three different thumbs for hitchhiking is sheer screwball genius!
It's a tale that all ages can admire as we watch the 'wall of jericho' fall from in-between them.
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